School buses prepared for daily routes
sicode.com
The Late Bus Deficit
MARCH 4, 2026
East Brunswick High School has approximately 2,100 students, and a majority of them are involved in one or multiple of the 40 different clubs and after-school activities that EBHS offers. However, the sudden cut in the activity buses on Tuesdays and Thursdays impacted the students’ ability to participate in these clubs, with many not being able to find a ride home or waiting so long for their parents that they lose time to complete outside work.
To adjust to the change, a lot of students have stopped joining a large variety of clubs. Most clubs now overlap their meetings with other clubs on Wednesday. Some clubs risk holding meetings on other days of the week, but here lies the issue of how these students are getting home without activity buses, resulting in lower club attendance. Waiting for a parent pick-up also creates more stress on the student, as they have less time to complete homework or participate in outside-of-school activities.
The issue for many also lies in the length of meetings. For clubs that are more rigorous, students have to stay in school longer.
Senior Hafsa Abbasi said, "Managing a ride for clubs like Waksman is the most difficult. The club meets twice a week, and sometimes we stay past 3:30 to load gels and work on posters."
In contrast, some clubs hold short, fifteen-minute meetings in which they don’t get a significant amount of work done. These contrasting meeting lengths make pick-up difficult for parents, often forcing students to plan their club meetings around their guardians’ schedules.
Senior Parinitha Karthik said, "I feel bad when I ask my parents for a ride over a short, unproductive fifteen-minute meeting."
Overall, the lack of activity buses creates higher pressure on both parents and students as it disrupts both of their schedules, as well as limiting student involvement in extracurricular activities.
